Adidas set to acquire Reebok in $3.8 billion deal

‘‘Today’s announcement represents a major strategic milestone for our group,’’ the chairman and chief executive officer of Adidas-Salomon, Herbert Hainer, said in the statement. ‘‘This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to combine two of the most respected and well-known companies in the worldwide sporting goods industry.’’

The deal would give Nike its first formidable competitor in more than a decade. A combined Adidas-Reebok would control about 20 per cent of the market, but would still remain behind Nike, which has about a third of the $145 billion worldwide market.

The transaction puts two of the world’s best-known brands together and combines a star-studded stable of athlete and entertainment endorsers including the basket ball player Allen Iverson (Reebok), soccer player David Beckham (Adidas) and rap artists Jay-Z (Reebok) and Missy Elliott (Adidas).

Analysts said Adidas-Salomon CEO Erich Stamminger has been vocal about the German company’s effort to build market share in the United States. John Horan, publisher of Sporting Goods Intelligence magazine, sees the $9 billion branded-shoe market in the US rising 8 per cent this year.

The combined company would likely have increased clout among retailers and an ability to command shelf space. The offer price represents a premium of 34.2 per cent over the closing price of Reebok’s stock on August 2.

Executives had said Adidas would also assume about $550 million in debt from Reebok, which is based in Canton, Massachusetts. Adidas is based in northern Bavaria in the town of Herzogenaurach.

While the deal is expected to face some scrutiny by regulators in the US and Europe, anti-trust lawyers suggested that it would likely be approved because the marketplace would probably be defined very widely.

The deal’s biggest beneficiary would be Paul Fireman, who brought Reebok to the US from Britain in 1979. It moved ahead of Nike as the athletic shoe industry leader in 1987 for a brief time.

In 1987, the Reebok board decided it was time to let somebody else run the company and Fireman was elevated to the new position of chairman, with no responsibility for the day-to-day running of Reebok. He came back as the chief executive in 1999, with the stock hovering around $7. — NYT